A Little Warning
by TheAlphabetSong
Summary: Eric finds out something about someone that he's close to. What he findsmout doesn't make him anywhere near as how upset he is at why she didn't tell him. If you want the rainbow you have to deal with the rain one-shot, maybe two.
1. Chapter 1

A Little Warning

A/N- I'm so sorry for not posting anything in a while, but I promise that I have a multi chapter story coming soon. Also I have a poll on my profile for your favourite character.

I wrote this in an hour and a half so please don't judge but I always love reviews.

TheAlphabetSong xx

She slammed the door in his face, "look, Eric I don't want to talk about it, it was a long time ago and it's over now, it was over long before I started at NCIS," Nell explained in a not so calm, very loud voice, not necessarily because she was angry becuase she had put a varnished piece of wood between them.

"Have you seen the way you look at him?" Eric questioned knowing he probably looked like an idiot shouting at someone through a door at eleven o'clock at night.

Eric heard a thump from the otherside of the door, either Nell had kicked it, which was highly unlikely or she had leaned her head back into it and slid to the bottom of the door so she was sitting on the floor.

"You don't understand," she said with a slightly softer tone but she was still yelling.

"What's not to understand? Four years, four years we have worked side-by-side and you never happened to tell me that he proposed?"

"Nate and I..." her voice had lowered so that he had to focus to actually understand what she was saying, "We only worked when we were in College, when we were still discovering ourselves, and it was just so out of the blue when he proposed... I didn't know what to say, and then a week later I decided not to go through with it," Nell explained with tears in her voice now.

"And I'm betting that you now regret it. I've seen you two, flirting away without a care of who's in the room," Eric argued, the hurt in his voice as clear as window pane.

"You still don't understand," she repeated in a small voice.

Hearing Nell like that broke Eric, it was like they were connected somehow. When Nell crumbled, Eric cracked too. He gave up on arguing, it was like a blunt pencil, useless and going nowhere.

"Then help me understand," Eric said softly.

He heard scuffing from the otherside of the door, and was surprised when the door opened to find Nell with a waterfall of tears down her face. She held the door open for him and lead him into her lounge room. She motioned for him to sit on the couch and she sat down next to him, crossing her legs and facing him.

"No one else in the team ever mentioned anything about you and Nate having a connection," Eric stated.

"Because you were the only one who saw it," Nell replied slowly.

Eric looked confused.

"Do I actually need to spell it out for you?" Nell asked rhetorically, " I only flirted with Nate in front of you, I only sent the flowers to myself to see how you would react. I only told you that I had been on a date to read your facial expression. I kissed you under the mistletoe to see if there was actually a connection."

Eric looked star-struck, "I-... how... Why did it take an argument for you to tell me?" Eric wondered aloud, before expanding, " Nell, you are the most beautiful, confident, intelligent person I have ever met and I know for a fact that I am not good at showing my feelings, but I can't believe I didn't catch on earlier," he said finally looking at her.

Watching her process the information and adding together everything. He could pinpoint the moment she figured everything out and her brain ticked to a halt.

She snaked her arm around his neck and pulled her lips to hers. The first time she kissed Eric she hadn't given him anytime to respond, nor act on her sudden bold movement. This time it was different, it was almost as if he was expecting her to kiss him. Having Eric actually move instead of stand there processing what was going on was one of the best experiences of her life, one question she still had; how was Eric this good at kissing and why had she put it off this long.

He pulled her closer to him with one hand and caressed her cheek with the other, his fingertips sliding slightly under her hair. Everything, every emotion, every argument, every professional opinion, every difference in methodologies; all the jealousy was worth the payout.

If Nell's mind hadn't been made up before it was now, kissing Eric was definitely the best decesion she'd made this week.

Breaking unwillingly apart from each other, still close enough that their noses were touching, they took a few moments to recover some air.

Nell was the first to break the silence, "wow," she breathed, "that was different to under the mistletoe."

"Well, it helps to have a couple seconds warning," Eric commented, with his usual tone of voice back.

"And now I wonder why we put this off."

"Well, let's not put it off any longer,"Eric said before dragging her lips back to his.

Please leave a review, doesn't have to be long because anything is appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2- Approval from Authority

A Little Warning- Part 2- Approval from Authority

A/N- I am incredibly sorry that I didn't get this up earlier, but I'm trying to balance writing three fanfics, one ordinary story and writing an opinion piece.

This story is only a two-shot in total, therefore this is the last one, I hope you enjoy it.

TheAlphabetSong

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story they are property of CBS and Shane Brennan.

It was usual when Eric arrived at work that Nell wasn't there yet, what wasn't usual was that Hetty also wasn't there. She more than likely had slept in, her Ninja skills probably needed a rest. Ignoring it figuring she would turn up eventually he headed up the stairs to Ops and started to check if there were any 'Persons of Interest' notifications or if he'd gotten any important emails. There was nothing and so he settled into finishing up some paperwork left over from the previous night that he hadn't finished because his mind had been most definitely elsewhere.

He was nowhere near finished when he felt arms wrap around him from behind, and lips press a kiss into his cheek. He turned his head around to see Nell. Seeing him turn around she placed a kiss on his lips. Eric tried to smile but the fear of getting caught out weighed it, leaving a slightly panicked expression on his face.

"Hetty," Eric said worried.

"She's not here Eric," Nell replied trying to ease his concern.

"Then where is she, and even if she isn't here she had eyes and ears everywhere."

Nell put here bag down and sat in her chair next to Eric. She swiveled her chair around so she was facing him.

"Just relax. There's not point in worrying about the 'what ifs'."

"But-"

"No buts, no protesting, no worrying, just focus on your paperwork."

He sighed and turned around, he was not going to start another argument with Nell, especially so soon after just ending one. She also must have found something to work on and so they typed in harmony. There was a certain kind of calmness and clarity that came with the sounds of fingers typing away on keyboards.

Time passed and at nine o'clockish they knew the rest of the team were there, when they heard the sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs, they belonged to Callen.

"Where's Hetty?" he asked as he walked into Ops.

Hearing his voice they turned around to see him with a slightly concerned look on his face.

"She wasn't here when I came in this morning," Eric said.

"I haven't seen her either, " Nell added.

Before anyone could get another word in Granger walked into the Ops Center.

"Henrietta's in D.C. She left last night. A whole lot of back-stabbing that she's avoided by staying away from D.C is about to be unleashed," he explained.

"By who?" Callen asked, outraged.

"I don't know, SECNAV won't tell me. This is way above all of our paygrades," Granger replied, "there's nothing we can do."

"This is Hetty we're talking about," Callen stated.

"She's a big girl Agent Callen, she does not need you baby sitting her," Granger said sternly.

"If Hetty needed our help she would've contacted us," Eric said once Granger had left Ops.

"What if she can't?" Nell asked becoming increasingly worried.

"Even last time she figured out how to contact us," Callem added, trying to ease the concern rising in the room.

"And last time she almost got killed, we can't guaruntee that it won't happen again," Nell argued.

"Granger's told us not to get involved and at the moment nothing looks sinister. Plus we don't have any other information," Eric said.

"Okay, fine,"Callen agreed, "but let me know when bodies start turning up in D.C."

"You got it," Nell and Eric replied in unison.

Callen left Ops followed by Nell who claimed to be going to the burn room with some classified documents thay needed to be incinerated, which left Eric up in Ops all on his lonesome. He needed a break from staring at the computer monitor for the past two and a half hours with absolutely no motivation that a case would normally bring, he too got up and walked out of Ops.

He got himself a cup of coffee, he wondered where the rest of the team were, his bets were on: either the gym, the armoury or the firing range; but as to where Granger was he didn't know, he didn't have a clue, he really didn't care. Nothing ever went well when he was around.

Being bored with paper work and no urgent case that he needed to get back to, he walked down the coridoor and opened the door to the burn room and found who he expected to find; his red- haired partner standing in front of the furnace throwing in files of paper.

"Hey," Eric said when Nell didn't notice she had company.

Her expression; glassy and distant was tranfixed on watching the papers turn to ash before slipping carelessly through the grate.

"Nell?"

"Huh, " she said as she jumped a little, startled out of her trance.

"You okay?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, I just- ... I don't know how anyone would function if Hetty wasn't here, I mean look at what happened with Hunter."

"Hetty will be okay, if she was in any kind of trouble, firstly Callen wouldn't have dropped it so easily and secondly we would've had something going on here that Hetty had some role in, and Granger would've been worrying."

"Okay," Nell said before attempting to shake the whole thing off with a subject change, "did you need anything?"

"Just one thing. To make sure you were okay," Eric replied.

Nell smiled and let out a weak laugh.

"Come here," Eric said pulling her into him embrace, she disappeared, encircled by his arms, thankful for the partial escape from reality. Nell was not one to cry, and so she held back her tears. She pulled back and convinced herself to look at the situation logically- this was (after all) Hetty Lange they were talking about. Once she had partially cleared her mind of thoughts about Hetty, she looked up at Eric, all of her worry for Hetty melted with the comfort that Eric's presence brought.

Their eyes locked like they always did but instead of one of them changing the subject or breaking eye contact. Eric leaned in to give her a quick kiss on his her lips but, when he went to pull back Nell's lips followed his, re- capturing them and drawing his concentration from everything but the kiss, including the fact that they were in the burn room and could be walked in on at anytime by anyone.

Nell really hadn't intended to get carried away but, his kiss was like a drug and the more she got the more she wanted.

His hand instinctively wrapped around her waist and she stood on her tippy toes, slightly decreasing the height difference between them. The fact that even just his touch was enough to leave her breathless, made the concept of trying to breathe whilst kissing him near impossible, and from the way they were both trying to breathe whenever they could, she assumed the same for him.

Had've she not known that it was physically impossible for time and space to simultaneously cease that's what she would've said happened whenever their lips touched. Even under the mistletoe, for less than three seconds they were the only two people on the Earth, then they'd pulled apart and reality came knocking on the door. This time their good old friend reality decided to knock on the door again, this time though, in a more literal term.

They hastily broke apart and turned to the door to see Kensi standing there trying to hide an amused smile.

Eric straightened his glasses.

Nell straightened her dress.

"What's this?" Kensi asked, clearly very amused.

"Nothing," Eric replied, "you saw nothing. And the evidence that contradicts your story of seeing nothing is leaving," he said grabbing Nell's hand, walking past Kensi and out into the hallway closing the door behind them.

"I always thought that was going to be the other way around," Eric stated in a quickly whispered tone.

"What? One of us walking in on Kens and Deeks?" Nell replied in a tone matching Eric's.

"Yep."

"Me too."

Hoping desperately not to meet Granger on the way up to Ops they started up the staircase to Ops with a fairly fast paced step.

When they were sitting down in their chairs in Ops Eric finally asked the question

"How long until Kensi lets that slip?"

"Trying not to think about it," Nell responded.

"What will Hetty will say?"

"Well, we know that Hetty was routing for Kens and Deeks and she congratulated them when they got together. But then again, she had four years fair warning when they got together."

"And her spy senses haven't been tingling about us for the past two years?"

Nell sighed and rested her head on her hand, "Nate probably told her that their could've been something going on between us, but whether that was three years ago or a few months ago I have no idea."

"Wait, what happened three years ago?" Eric asked.

Nell wished she hadn't mentioned that.

"I may have said something to him about you and with him being paid to read people for a living, he may have seen my real intent," Nell explained.

"And what intent would that be, Miss Jones?"

Now that was a conversation she wasn't having.

Kensi walked into the bullpen looking half lost, half very confused; like she was trying to process something.

"What's going on Kens?" Deeks asked.

"Huh?" she responded snapping out of her trance.

"What's up?"

"Do you want to know what I just saw?" Kensi asked walking over to Deeks' desk, leaning on it and whispering slightly.

"What. Kens, what did you just see?" Deeks asked, his curiousity building.

"Eric, Nell; in the burn room. Kissing."

Deeks' eyebrows shot up, "you serious?"

Kensi nodded her head, "Told me that I'd seen nothing and walked out of there. No explination, no anything."

"Really?" Deeks asked. Kensi nodded.

"How long have they been hiding this?" Kensi asked after a while.

"I don't know," he replied exhaling deeply.

"And Eric never mentioned *anything* to you anything at all?"

"Nope. Nada. Not a thing," he replied instantly, before thinking his response through, and asking again "What? You mean Nell never mentioned anything to you?"

"Not a word."

"Okay," Deeks said slowly, processing the information in his head, "so they are either so good at hiding it that five highly-skilled, highly -trained federal agents, a physiologist, and the master of the entire known universe didn't notice or-"

"Or it's a recent development," Kensi finished for Deeks.

"Exactly," he agreed, "And we both know that they can't keep a secret, that doesn't affect national security."

"Well, maybe they can keep this one a little longer," Kensi said trailing off at the end.

"And that means what?"

"You know..."

"What? That we don't tell anyone?"

"Just because I told you doesn't mean I, nor Nell and Eric want the entire work place knowing."

"Okay, fine. We won't tell anyone, " Deeks agreed.

"Deal?"

"Deal."

00..

A few hours later the situation had not been forgotten but, at least put behind them temperaily. Having nothing left to do, that wasn't making them want to fall asleep. After all it had been eleven o'clock last night when he and Nell were fighting, and it was close to twelve before Eric left her place. In the end they had decided to play a personal info game

"That's not how it works," Nell said laughing, "when I tell you something you have to tell me something of equal value. And as hilarious as that is it will not suffice," she explained.

"What? How is there nothing better than you knowing that I used to be the only male dancer in my high school and that I used to get all of the solo parts?"

"Don't tell me that, tell me why you were the only male dancer in your high school?"

" I told you for comedic value not for emotional value," Eric said laying his answer down like flat lemonade.

Nell's expression and laughter faultered at the change of Eric usual light tone.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry I pushed you too far," Nell replied in a sypthetic tone of voice.

"No it's okay, you didn't know that it was a sensitive area of my past," Eric said before refreshing his emails for the sixth time in the past three minutes; desperate for something to do. Not because he didn't want to talk to Nell, because he needed to do something more than stare at a computer screen.

"Next question," Nell requested.

"What is the last book you read?" Eric asked.

"Sense and Sensabilty- by Jane Austen... Again. What about you?"

"I haven't read anything in quite awhile, so the last thing I probably read would have been a comic book."

"I'm surprised you can't tell me which one."

"Just because I can tell you the name of the comic and who wrote it if you give me the description does not mean that I can remember which one I read last."

"What? I can remember the name of the first book that I ever read and yet you can't? Something's wrong with you Beale, don't you have an almost photographic memory?"

"Emphasis on almost, and besides you're the one with an IQ that you claim is higher than everyone else employeed here at NCIS," he replied with a playful smirk on his face; flipping the question back on her.

"Technically it was Hetty who said that particular line. I, myself have only ever said that my IQ crushes yours. Which it does," Nell fired back, swiveling her chair around to face him.

"And how could you know that if you don't know what my actual IQ is?"

"Well, I could ask you the same question."

Eric sighed in frustration, he could never get ahead of this girl.

Once getting that reaction from Eric, Nell took a step back, exhaling to compose herself.

He went to say something, probably apologize, but Nell was determined to to get her piece in first. So in attemps to silence him she pressed her finger lightly to his lips.

"Are we really going to argue over this?" She asked.

"Aparently we were but, now I've been convinced otherwise."

"It would have been our first argument, but thankfully it's not."

"Third, it would've been our third argument," Eric corrected.

"When was our first?"

"I can not believe you don't remember. The argument we got into in your first week in the job. About you finishing my sentences."

"Of course how could I forget?"

"Well, I don't know how you could forget, becuase I wouldn't."

"And why would you not?"

"Becuase it was when I realised that, that girl was going to change my life."

"And were you right?"

"Well just more than a year later when I fell for her, I knew there was no turning back."

"But were you right?"

Eric said nothing because, for one; actions speak louder than words and two: Eric wasn't very good with words.

Pressing a kiss into each side of her smile and then finally one on her lips gave her the answer she wanted.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then," she said, answering her own question.

00..

It was later that night when they were about to leave Ops, after shutting everything off, that Hetty stalked into the bullpen taking note that everyone had gone home. She looked tired and slightly frustrated, she was probably rather angry but was very good at hiding her emotions and therefore didn't let them show.

She milled over to her desk just as Eric and Nell came down the stairs from Ops, her sudden apperence was taken notice of by Nell first, who nudged Eric's shoulder and flicked her head towards Hetty's previously unoccupied desk. His eyes widened as he saw her.

"That was over quicker than I imagined," Eric whispered.

"Yeah, it was," Nell agreed.

"What are you two whispering about?" Hetty asked from, her desk.

"She's over thirty feet away, how can she hear us?" Eric asked, whispering again and continuing his descent down the stairs.

"I heard thay mister Beale," Hetty called.

They walked over to her desk, where she sat with an already brewing pot of lavender tea.

"So, Hetty. How was your meeting in D.C.?" Nell asked.

"Quite unpleasant, unfortunately," she replied, before elaborating slightly, "there was a car waiting for me when I left here yesterday, I knew who they were, so I got in the car. They then shoved me on a five hour plane trip, and as soon as I got off that, I was directed into a court room. In the middle of the night."

"That sounds like quite the adventure," Nell said, commenting.

"Indeed," she replied, "anyway on a lighter note, I believe the saying 'it's about time' and congratulations are in order."

"About what?" Nell questioned.

"About you two."

Eric and Nell shared a confused look.

"How do you... Who told you?"

"Nobody, Miss Jones," she answered cryptically, "have a goodnight," she concluded raising her cup up at them.

"Goodnight Hetty," Eric and Nell both replied, before leaving, still scratching their heads over how Hetty knew. Well it would just be another item to add to the long list of mysteries about Miss Henrietta Lange.

Please leave a review. They make me happy.


End file.
